Volume 30, Issue 3

In recent years many scholars seem to agree that viewers’ interpretations play a prominent role in the influence of television news. However, a clear concept of ‘interpretation’ is still missing. This article proposes to conceptualize interpretation as the ‘representation’ of a news item as constructed and reported by a news viewer. More specifically, we look at this representation in terms of its complexity. Two aspects are important: first, the fundamental elements viewers use in their interpretation (differentiation), and second, how the viewer relates these elements to one another on a more abstract level (integration). Together, differentiation and integration represent the complexity of the viewer’s interpretation of a television news item. The article provides definitions of these concepts and argues that interpretive complexity can be useful in studying the influence of television news. It concludes by outlining research questions in the field of television news using interpretive complexity.

Against the background of the current European competitive media landscape, the media are more and more compelled to legitimize their activities in their own national context as well as at a European level. Meanwhile, the nature of the media diversity in The Netherlands has changed tremendously; from a society divided along political and religious lines, it has evolved towards a multi-ethnic society. Hence, both the conceptualizing and operationalizing of media diversity from an academic as well as a media practical perspective prove to be hot topics. An expert meeting was held at the Department of Communication at Radboud University Nijmegen in December 2004 in which the contours of media diversity in general and in The Netherlands in particular were explored. Institutional performance as well as program-related aspects linked to the notion of media diversity were discussed. Media diversity was explored from the angle of media economics (How many media actors are there? What about the competition? Is competition deadly or just healthy or somewhere in between?) as well as from the perspective of the program/format level (Is it more of the same? A lot of imports? What about criteria for quality, innovation? Does the public broadcaster make any difference?). In addition, the audience reception perspective (Are these media production and distribution trends followed by media use patterns?) as well as methodologically problematic aspects one encounters when measuring media diversity were assessed. What follows here is a selection of several most pertinent views on this complex topic. We welcome each critical insight from other geographical contexts which might stimulate the debate on measures of open and reflective diversity in the media.

This study investigates the negative reactions of Dutch viewers to the content of television programs. The results show that a vast majority is sometimes irritated by TV programs, that a somewhat smaller majority is sometimes shocked by the programs, and that one fifth of the viewing population consider certain programs to be intolerable. The most frequently mentioned genres are games, shows, and related entertainment programs, while reality TV (scoring high on all negative reactions), news and current affairs (often shocking), and sex (often intolerable) are primarily evaluated as irritating. It appears that violent and frightening material creates by far the largest category of negative responses. Intimidating behavior worries the viewers most, immediately followed by the violation of privacy. This article also discusses the consequences of these results for broadcasting policy in the Netherlands.

This study explored the relationship between both overall television viewing and romantic youth drama viewing, as well as of females’ concerns about boys’ attractiveness expectations on the one hand, and body image dissatisfaction on the other. Participants were 411 adolescent girls (ages 14 – 16) who completed self-report measures on body dissatisfaction, television viewing, and concerns about appearance expectations. Our results indicated that there was both a direct and indirect relationship between romantic youth drama viewing and body satisfaction. Girls who spent more time watching romantic youth drama displayed lower levels of body satisfaction. In addition, romantic youth drama viewing had a significant positive impact on concerns about boys’ attractiveness expectations, which had an indirect effect on body satisfaction.

This study focuses on a news framing analysis of Latin America and Latin Americans in the Spanish press. For this purpose 1,271 news articles with different Latin American countries or their citizens as main actors were examined. These news stories had been published by the main Spanish newspapers in 1999. The results reveal that attribution of responsibility, human interest, and conflict constitute the prevailing frames used by the Spanish press. Furthermore, significant differences in the considered variables in terms of main country actor were observed. Venezuela and Colombia, in particular, are associated with armed conflicts, natural disasters, crimes, and accidents using human interest and conflict news frames. This leads to a necessary consideration of the consequences this type of news coverage on Latin America may generate, and whether it will reinforce stereotypes or prejudices in the Spanish audience against peoples from these countries, especially those with a high migratory influx to Spain.

Evans, K. F. : Maintaining community in the Information Age. The importance of trust, place and situated knowledge (2004, Palgrave MacMillan) ( Ed Hollander ) Martin, S. E. & Copeland, D. A. (Ed.). The function of newspapers in society. A global perspective (2003, Praeger) ( Kees Buijs ) Hine, C. (Ed.). Virtual methods; Issues in social research on the Internet (2005, Berg) ( Nicholas W. Jankowski )